Go to hell Mike Scioscia, Go to hell All-Star Game

The BBQ Pit
1

I wanted little Rafael to do it.

I wanted him to hit a home run and tie the game tonight.

For one reason.

To force Keith Foulke out of the game. But, his 165lb frame, smaller than me, couldn’t make the ball fall over the fence.

You see, even if the AL benefits from the victory tonight. I wanted a tie, I wanted some hits.

Mike Scioscia made a mockery out of the all-star game with his bias.

Not since a bigger crime (Cito Gaston snubbing Mike Mussina in Baltimore) has something this questionable happened.

Then again, when Mike didn’t play, it didn’t count, so this is the first controversy that counts.

It counted enough for Mike Scioscia that he had to send out Hasegawa, who got hammered.

Then he sent out Guardado for the last out. Everyday Eddie, in the Barry Zito role, got the out. Thanks for showing up Eddie! (he must have been the only Twins rep). Oh yeah, Eddie gave up a run too.

Then Mulder got TWO FREAKING INNINGS. I guess it counts enough to put out a reliever who will give up a home run.

Followed by Donnelly who has an absurdly low ERA.

and Keith Foulke, the co-leader in saves for the AL.

Mike Scioscia forgot something.

He forgot that he was managing the American League All-Stars and not the West Coast Superstars.

5 out of the 8 pitchers were from Seattle, Oakland and Anaheim.

Scioscia forgot one little thing. He forgot to play the representive from a first place team. That player being Mike MacDougal (a reliever with better ERA numbers than Foulke and the same # of saves).

Hell, this time it COUNTS. Why not just make the game AL West v. NL? That should satisfy Scioscia and his fetish for letting Garrett and Glaus play.

The All Star Game is an exhibition of players from both sides. The only reason it “counts” is because Joe Torre, Bob Brenly and Bud Selig screwed it up in Bud’s hometown last year.

Rest assured that the Angels will not get to win another series and biased moron Scioscia will never manage in the All Star game again.

But, at least the Royals didn’t have to play tonight to get games 1 and 2. :smiley: hee hee

Nobody should take the All-Star game seriously while Fox and MLB are allowed to put Roger Clemens into the game. Roger’s going to retire? So what? It’s not like you won’t orgasm and dedicate videos to Roger the Great when the playoffs come. It’s not like Fox won’t pray that the Yankees make it to the WS and Clemens pitches in game 7.

Mike Scioscia, this time, we’re pissed.

[Players recieving smaller shares of my ire:
Rafael Furcal for his throw to giant Richie Sexson and for his warning track power.
Eric Goatee for his first blown save, but hell, it’s not like the Dodgers are going to the playoffs anyways. :D]

and for your info, the guys who didn’t play tonight (but were able to)

NL position player- Geoff Jenkins (interesting how the fan-picked 32nd man didn’t get any time, I guess he isn’t black enough for Dusty)

AL position players- Jason Varitek, Dmitri Young.

Both 32nd men didn’t play. So to the fans who voted out there, you picked two guys who warmed benches. Dmitri is listed as being a left fielder. Look at who as in left field for the AL. Yep, Garret Anderson. Young didn’t even get the chance to play in the field in the top of the ninth. If Furcal would have hit a home run, it may have been too important to have Young hit, Garrett would get a fifth at-bat!

NL pitchers- Benitez (who got in via bribery, I guess), Prior, Smoltz (who would have came in for the 9th, I’d guess), Mike Williams (it ain’t an all-star game without a crappy reliever!) and Dontrelle Willis.

Ah… so inspirational… the superstar like Vida… doesn’t get to pitch. Well, tough luck Donny!

AL pitchers- Lance Carter (fresh off attempts to go into orbit with the Russians), C.C. Sabathia, Roy Halladay and Mike MacDougal.

Bud Selig makes the guys who built Major League baseball roll in their graves. He is a disgrace to the game. Unfortunately, Selig is proof that a lobotimized eunech can become commissioner.

2

You might want to notice that, in AL, most of the talent IS in the west.

Then again, it’s fairly obvious you don’t understand the game of baseball. I don’t like home field advantage riding on the all-star game, but since it does, the manager has to try to win. And that’s what Scoicia did. And guess what? He DID win!

Yeah, fuck him for doing his job.

3

So you’re mad at Scioscia for playing his best players the majority of the game? Gimme a break. And if you didn’t notice, the AL West had 5 of the 9 starting spots, and Scoscia rode his starters for longer than usual.

And what’s your problem with having the All-Star game count for a little something? It’s at the very least less arbitrary than rotating AL-NL for WS home-field. Believe it or not, change can be good as well as bad. Change is what gave us the All-Star game in the first place. It’s what gave us the World Series (I recall the National League didn’t want to associate with the American back in the day). Sure Selig called the tie last year, but it was really the traditional system of feeding all of the little All-Star egos with their inning in the spotlight that produced last year’s fiasco. Maybe if nothing was riding on this, we could have seen 6.44 ERA guy. Aww shucks.

4

I really thought Furcal got a hold of that last one.

Andruw on deck to put the NL ahead, and then Smoltz to shut em down…I had the perfect Braves ending in my head. Raffie just came up about 8 feet short. :frowning:

5

Fine, you ranted. It was pretty weak and relatively lacking in actual baseball argumentation, but you lost me with:

Huh? If you were joking, it was a bad joke. If you were serious, you’re an idiot.

6

Wouldn’t bother me a bit if more players rode the pines the entire game. Wouldn’t bother me a bit if more starters played the entire game. Wouldn’t bother me a bit to cut the roster back to 25. (Even though that might require losing the ‘one player from each team’ rule, which I like.)

Trying to force meaning into the result of an exhibition game which should only be for fun is just a bad idea. Call me a traditionalist. Change is not always good, either.

YMMV

7

Well, no, Garrett was taken out for a pinch runner after going 3 for 4. I’m too lazy to look up who replaced him, though.

All in all, this game left a bad taste in my mouth. Probably because (a) I rooted for a motherfucking BRAVE to hit a home run and (b) the National League lost. I think there’s probably a ©, but I can’t put my finger on it (other than maybe some vague, unsupported feeling about Dusty mismanaging this game).

8

Huh? Glaus was a starter. As in, received the most votes at 3rd base, thus he gets to start.

Garrett won the Home Run Derby. He’s been on fire the last month. I’d imagine he batted in the 8th becuase he had a hot bat (he did hit a homerun in his previous at-bat).

Your post makes absolutely no sense. I suggest a re-write.

Munch - Royals fan

9

Melvin Mora. Gotta get a little love for the Os only representative, after all he’s only been the leading hitter in the Major Leagues for most of the last few months.

10

I’d just like to complain somewhat about the Barry Zito thing. Yes, he had just pitched and probably wouldn’t have played anyway. And whoop de damn doo for Roger Clemens. But MLB/Oakland, do you think you could have done a little better job notifying Barry that he was being switched?

http://espn.go.com/mlb/allstar03/s/2003/0714/1580480.html?partnersite=espn

Feh. Like I would have watched the game either way.

11

So if the AL team wins the World Series, do they name Hank Blalock MVP? :smiley:

12

I thought it was a great game. Scioscia is partial to Garret Anderson, but there is a reason for it. Having watched GA for years, I have seen just how great he is. He makes baseball playing look easy. He rarely has to run for the ball and heaven forbid he dive to make a catch but that is cause he knows where to be when the pitcher throws the pitch (he is already positioned). He is one of the cleanest ball players at the end of the game.

Currently the best baseball is played in the West, so the Allstar teams will reflect that fact. How can you gripe about Mulder getting 2 innings, he is one of the best pitchers around.

re: not allowing a player from a 1st place team to play. From an article in today’s LATimes as well MLB Angels news, Mickey Hatcher had Mike Sweeney be the Rally Monkey.

So how can you say that a Royal played no part in the mid-season classic. In my opinion Mr. Sweeney rendition of the Rally Monkey was obviously the reason for the A.L. mounting that great comeback.

At the end of the game, I turned to my mom and said “woohoo, we can be at game 7 again this year”.

13

Deb, my parents live in KC and are incredibly nice people. If you need a place to stay, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to leave a light on for you.

14

I don’t see how KC would be terribly convenient if game 7 is in the Bronx.

15

deb pinches Munch You are sooooo cute.

I got to gushing about my team – plus I got busy making a funny (you might want to open up a window, sorry) – that I totally forgot why I came in here. To rant about FOX. Tim McCarver is an idiot. Is he even capable of uttering a coherrent sentence much less a complete one. Buck was a little better, but I caught him in a few errors during the game. It was terrible. At least last year I was spared their inane prattle during the World Series since I wasn’t home to watch it or during the away game I turned on the radio for sound.

Could these 2 guys shut up about the stupid stuff and give us some fact about the players that are playing RIGHT NOW! And speaking of info about the players, FOX could you leave the stats up a little longer, you put them up, then woosh they were gone.

Ugh, how about that catcher cam. The 1st time is was turned on I said, “we can live without that, that is terrible”. When the foul ball hit it and it was broken there was much rejoicing. When it was shown to be still functioning, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

FOX ineptitude in sports broadcasting hit an all time low yesterday.

Please MLB, can we have some other network get the rights to the game? Pretty please with sugar on it.

16

deb, I agree. While I love Johnny Doppler (Joe Buck to the uninitiated), McCarver is an idiot.

After someone, Jason Schmidt I believe, struck out 3 in the 2nd inning, McCarver excitedly announces, “and Schmidt strikes out the side!”. No, you buffoon. He hit Martinez in the head, and Matsui singled to left. When you strike out the side, you do exactly that - 3 batters, 3 Ks.

17

I believe that common baseball parlance nowadays has “strike out the side” mean that you struck out all three outs, whether or not you allow zero baserunners or fifty. I’ve seen the term used like this by many announcers, highlight shows (i.e. Baseball Tonight), and a couple of newspapers.

I am not aware of a common term for striking out the side without allowing any baserunners (3 up, 3 k’d?)

I don’t think change is always good; in particular, I think the last expansions and the move to three divisions + wildcard was kind of silly. I like the pennant races to have the same luster of years past, and I don’t like a 5-game playoff series in a sport where even horrible teams can take 2 out of 3 from great teams.

But changes have benefitted the game, even when controversial at the time, such as the World Series, the expansion into 4 divisions, etc. I think this current all-star change should not be evaluated on how it mars tradition, but on whether or not it helps the game. And I think it does, letting the managers have an excuse to manage to win the game, to let us have the best players out there longer.

I think a more fair way to determine home-field advantage would be to look at the overall inter-league record (American vs. National), or just overall team record. I don’t understand what’s the big deal about scheduling, since you won’t know where the world series will be until the end of LCS anyway.

But having home-field going to the result of a baseball game is a step up from just ping pong back and forth assignment.

18

My favorite part was when they were interviewing Garett Anderson during the 9th inning about, like, gee, maybe he’ll win the MVP, then popped up a smaller window with Foulke picthing to Luis Castillo with one out. That’s great for him that maybe he’ll win and all, but can we maybe watch the rest of the NINTH INNING OF THE ONE RUN FUCKING GAME?

19

I thought Furcal’s homer would carry. Too bad it didn’t, because Smoltz would have been lights out.

As far as some of the other “points” in the OP:

  1. Dontrelle Willis pitched right before the All-Star Break, so I have a feeling Marlins management told Dusty not to use him unless necessary.

  2. Garret Anderson deserved to play as long as he did. The guy won the Home Run Derby and plays hard. Plus, no one from the Detroit Tigers deserved to be at the game, much less in it. Same for Tampa Bay’s representative.

  3. Of the 4 pitchers left on Scioscia’s bench, 2 were starters. One of those starters (most likely Halladay) was being held in the event of a tie game. That leaves C.C. Sabathia, Lance Carter and Mike MacDougal. Sabathia is a lefty, so he would have been a situational appearance, plus as a starter he would take longer to warm up. And for the record, Foulke’s ERA as of the ASG was 2.53, while MacDougal’s was 2.79, so there goes that point. I’ve already addressed the Tampa Bay situation (Carter).

  4. Mulder pitched two innings because he is a starting pitcher. He’s not conditioned to come in and immediately have his best stuff. Scioscia made the right call giving him two innings.

  5. Who cares if the 32nd men didn’t play? Geoff Jenkins was an extra outfielder who probably wouldn’t have played in any year (the Brewers had Sexson in the game) while Varitek was a third catcher on a team with Posada and Hernandez.

  6. Troy Glaus played as long as he did because the AL only had two third basemen. Bringing Blalock in too soon means that Dusty can counter with his bullpen and shut Blalock down. The NL didn’t have that problem (Rolen, Lowell, and Aaron Boone).

Also, Mullinator, that crack about Jenkins’ skin color was in relation to Dusty Baker’s statement that black players hold up better through the summer than white players.

20

While we’re at it, fuck this “every team gets a representative” crap. That, more than anything else, made the all-star game a joke.

There should be:
6 outfielders
10 infielders
10 pitchers

For the outfielders, you just take the guys who got the most votes.

For the infielders, you take 2 of each position. Again, the top vote-getters.

If there’s something important riding on the game, and home field advantage IS important, then a manager shouldn’t be saddled with a loser from a loser team. He shouldn’t worry about making sure everybody plays (what is this? little league???) AND he shouldn’t have 32 players to choose from. 26 is more than enough to play a game with.